We may have celebrated the National Park Service centennial for an entire year, visited Yosemite and Yellowstone and gawked at Crater Lake. But there are some gorgeous parks, say the travel experts at National Geographic, that most of us don’t even know exist. The nation’s largest national park, for example, is Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias, an expanse of wilderness larger than Switzerland. Its 20,000-square miles of spectacular sights include nine of the nation’s 16 tallest mountains, a glacier the size of Rhode Island and a 7,000-foot wall of ice. Winter is coming, indeed.
Here’s just a taste. You’ll find the rest of the list, as well as tempting details and photographs, at www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/top-10.
- Gates of the Arctic, Alaska
- North Cascades, Washington
- Isle Royale, Michigan
- Congaree, South Carolina
- Dry Tortugas, Florida
- Wrangell-St. Elias
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